snakeskin boot
on snakeskin
like oro grande
boomtown
gone to dust
he steps
then rolls
then sole
on throat.
look, he says
a diamondback
and offers it
to the sun
but rattler's gone
sliced off
by a trucker
or local headed home
to el paso
*
is shaded lamp
who knows
sees enough
of mescalero ways
to realize earth
holds
its own booze
hallucinations
wipes off
the blood
and tosses it in
a local's frame
Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Lawrence Welsh first hitchhiked to New Mexico and Texas in 1989. Five years later, he moved to El Paso, where he still lives. He's published six books of poetry. "Gone Rattler" is from his most recent, Skull Highway, published by La Alameda Press. His work has appeared in more than 175 national and regional magazines.
A winner of the Bardsong Press Celtic Voice Writing Award in Poetry, he's an associate professor of English at El Paso Community College. Photo by Richard Baron.